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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

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In real estate dream #4a, I'm staging a tree house, with bakelite radio and army issue binoculars, mosquito netting, maps of the Ubangi River, and a dog eared copy of Lord Jim, or The Swiss Family Robinson.

Some arboreal structures are cobbled together from partial sheets of ply and builders waste (see top). Others employ fine finish materials, inspired by fantastical architectural, or the tree dwelling tribes of New Guinea.

Pitchford Estate in Shropshire County England claims the oldest extant tree house, believed to date from at least 1692.

But while constructing a woodsy roost used to be a rite of passage, chief staging for hideouts, secret clubs, and sleep overs, the pre-fab play structure seems to have commandeered the kiddie commorancy niche.

But who needs all that outdoor imagination stuff when you have video games?

This is not something totally new for me but something that I don't do often. If I did I'd be HUGE because there is nothing better than warm homemade bread with real butter. I have tried a few recipes lately but thought they tasted more like a sweet bread so I thought I'd try something on my own. I made one batch that I used half wheat flour and half white flour and it went to the garbage can. It wouldn't even mix up. I figure it needed more oil or liquid but at that point I was done with it.

As my attempts went on I finally came up with this and so far like it the best.

Homemade Bread

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup warm water

1 tbsp. dry yeast

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp. salt

In mixing bowl, let sugar dissolve in warm water.

Add yeast, give it a gentle stir and let sit 5 minutes.

Add oil, flours, and salt.

Mix all together.

I use my Kitchen-Aid mixer with the dough hook attachment and just let it do the work of kneading for about 5 minutes on low speed.

Place in a greased loaf pan.

Cover with a tea towel or light-weight towel and let the dough rise.

The time will depend on the warmth of your house.

I place mine on top of the fridge and let it rise for about 2 hours.

Uncover and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

This makes one loaf.

I always try to have a fast & simple dinner on Friday nights so I used this bread this past Friday to make turkey melts and boy were they good.

I just sliced & buttered one side of the bread. Placed butter side down on griddle and then topped with mesquite turkey breast and a slice of cheese. Put other slice of buttered bread on top and cook till both sides are toasted. (I have been using my bacon press when making sandwiches this way. It makes them flat and reminds me of a panini.)

Anyways, when both sides were toasted I removed them. Opened them up and added shredded lettuce, tomato slices and then drizzled a little coleslaw dressing over the top. YUM!

Some readers have been wondering whatever happened to our awesomely pathetic trio of heroes. Well, they (i.e. Niku, Funkaz & Deyus) are still carrying on with their pathetic lives in their respective awesome ways (or as it can also be said carrying out their awesome lives in their respective pathetic ways). But lack of time and laziness had prevented their awesome adventures from being told to the world.

Over the last few months they discovered the world of text messaging. Their work life was getting busier and busier. So the daily communication was established through the official phone connection (bills paid by the-company-which-must-not-be-named). It all started when Niku was dragged deep inside the earth's crust. During his entrapment, he underwent some severe EA (emotional attyachar, for the uninitiated). It was then that he discovered the power of the SMS. His flatmates Funkaz and Deyus responded in the times of trouble and the EA was made more bearable with the constant exchange of messages. However, after a while, the period of EA got over, but the texts went back and forth. It covered a whole gamut of topics, from their own awesomely pathetic lives to affairs of the world and the people around them. Going into the entire list would be pretty long (and it would go on and on) but here is a little sample of the awesomely pathetic SMSs which they exchanged.

Not too long ago I began working on my first stitchery. I have done cross-stitch in previous years but find that now a days I can't see patterns as good as I once could (even with glasses) and I don't have enough quiet time to actually sit and look at a pattern book and then look & count on my fabric to sew it. But with a stitchery, you transfer the image right on to your fabric and then stitch away. For me, this is great because when I sit down to sew and have to get up 50 times to see what one kid or the other needs, what they have done or to simply break up fight number 10,000 for the day I can easily go back to it when I'm finished and simply start stitching. I don't have to recount again.

This was intended to be a picture but in the end I had cut my batting just a bit too short so when I went to frame it that "empty spot" showed through the muslin. I just made it into a little pillow and figured it was a lesson learned.

I have some free time today so I'm off to pick another pattern out to start stitching.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

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I'll keep this short and sweet. Getting close to midnight here.

I like this sketch of Claudia's for the Friday Sketchers #45 challenge. Any sketch with a circle gives me a chance to put a sitting Tilda in it. Haven't had a chance to use this stamp before. I got this stamp because whenever I give a card to a close friend or relative, I sign it off with "lots of love and laughter"--don't you just love the alliteration? That's become my signature sign-off. This Tilda image is just perfect. And I found a set of clear stamps with quotes on laughter (and fun)--also perfect.

I had to get really close to show the true color and variety of the beads in this necklace. There are quite a few different sizes and shapes, from large cat's eye to Czech glass flower beads and small sparkly glass beads to small diagonal drilled square cat's eye beads, all in shades of sky blue.~Today's Quote~"More than anything I must have flowers, always, always, always."~Monet

Saturday, March 28, 2009

This is what I ended up with. Hmmm...I'm still not sure if I'm pleased with it or not. Lots of colours there, maybe too much. 3 different designer papers, all colourful. I think next time I'd make one of them plainer. You don't really get the full effect until you look at the finished card. By then, it's way way too late to change anything--everything's glued on!

I had to improvise with the bench that Tilda is sitting on. I had to make it go off the page. It's actually a Christmas bench and there's a cluster of 2 huge holly leaves and berries at the left-hand side of the bench which I really didn't want on this card.

Friday, March 27, 2009

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Well, it's a dark rainy day so I couldn't get a very good picture. And snow is in our forecast for tomorrow. Happy Spring, huh?

This is a month of firsts, I guess. This is the first time I've made a complete set with necklace, bracelet, and earrings. I love these colors. These are Autumn Jasper chips in shades of green and orange on dark copper wire.

~Today's Quote~

"I do not understand how anyone can live without one small place of enchantment to turn to"

~Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

My special place of enchantment is Eureka Springs. I hope you can think about yours and forget about the weather outside!

I love the taste of homemade sweet potato fries, however, I don't make them very often. You see, I live with the world's pickiest eaters ever! They don't like to try new things, they don't care for vegetables, and one will hardly touch a piece of meat, so they all make meal planning a pure pain in the rear.

So, when I make sweet potato fries I always throw in some plain ol' white potatoes to please everyone else and here is how I make them!

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

sweet potatoes

white potatoes

olive oil

parsley

McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning

(You can use any of your favorite spices in place of this.)

Wash the potatoes.

Peel if you wish.

Slice into french fry sticks or wedges

Place in large bowl and drizzle olive oil over them.

Toss them around good so that they all get covered in oil.

Place on a greased baking sheet.

Sprinkle seasoning over top of them.

Bake in oven at 425.

Bake 15 minutes and then flip them over.

Bake another 15-30 minutes.

Check on them every so often so that you don't burn them.

The cooking time varies depending on the amount that I am making.

***************************

I have fooled my kids before with the zucchini fries. I placed them on the table along with the potato fries and they ate them and liked them.

Zucchini Fries

zucchini

Italian bread crumbs

Parmesan cheese

oregano

basil

salt

pepper

2 egg whites

I usually just toss the ingredients into a bowl so I don't have the measurements to share. Sorry!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Apart from the fact that I really enjoy making these and have made a few variations in different bright colourful combinations, I also made some for each of my sisters for their birthdays; one in pink for Silvia and one in dark navy/purple for Claudia, and had a custom order for a fuchsia one.... but I would probably not have thought of making these in black had it not been for my cousin who asked me to make her some... and so I did and am so thrilled with how they turned out that am actually thinking of making myself a set!!! I really love these!!! and so for the inspiration I need to thank Bettina!!! thank you so much!!! I hope you get to enjoy wearing the Black Chic Choker and Black Chic Earrings as much as I enjoyed making them!!!! and hope you love them as much as I do!!!

Apart from these... I have been working on a very luscious bead-embroidered cuff... it's so close to being finished... I think I'm about 45 minutes away from the end.... but have been so distracted lately, that it's has not progressed... this weekend I will be busy with my real job, so I don't think I'll get it done... but maybe, if I can find an hour to spare... and a few more to photograph it... I should have it posted, hopefully, by next week...

In the meantime... let me know what you think of the black version of these pieces... wishing everyone happy beading!!! :-)

First of all, I must tell you about the Magnolia Blog Candy Give Away by Claudia at her blog Pretty Pressings. You really must take a look at her site. You will be amazed. I mean simply amazed. She is one very talented lady. All her cards are simply gorgeous. I learned so much from visiting her blog.

Now on to the challenge at Bizzy Becs. The challenge is simply to create a male card. "It can have any Male theme or image stamped on it. It can be any colour. This one is totally up to you.. Must show some METAL somewhere.. " Perfect! As my brother's birthday is coming up in April, this card will go out to him.

This is the first chance I get of using these stamp (actually for most of my stamps, as I've just recently acquired my Magnolia stamps). The stamp is called Edwin picking mushrooms. I also found the perfect Metal piece for this card (at Michaels), a charm of what else...mushroom! So here's my card. Taa daa.....

The idea for this card actually came from Claudia's blog. She calls this type of cards "buckle cards". I like it--it's different. I think I must do another buckle card and this time using a Tilda image.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

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Its that time again. Time for the biggest festival in India. The General elections. We might have the Olympics and the World Cups in different sports but nothing, absolutely nothing gets bigger or better than this. This time we will be having a 5 phase voting spread over a month. The official notification has been released and the fun has begun. But the political games had started long time time back. The big 2, Congress and BJP are in deep negotiations with the allies. Both camps making new alliances and losing out on old ones (Losing mostly). And we have the bunch of power hungry opportunists who call themselves the Third Front (Left parties, BSP, Telugu Desam etc), who have no common ideology except a shared hunger for power. And this is just the beginning. Post results (with a hung Parliament, the most likely result) will be the time when the power brokers come into action. New back room king makers will emerge. Lets just wait and watch and enjoy the political power games.

Some snippets of the games going on

Advani calls Manmohan Singh a puppet and has his track record as home minister laid out in open by the PM (which was a bit surprising)

BJP bombards the internet with links to Advani's blog (Sorry, but no links here)

Varun Gandhi gets into trouble from EC

Congress & BJP are ditched by their allies

Third front starts dreaming again (Personal opinion - Dont care if its UPA or NDA in power, but Congress/BJP should be the one forming the government, not this bunch of oppotunistic jokers)

IPL becomes non-resident (South Africa is the confirmed venue) and political mudslinging starts on that too (hardly surprising, given that most BCCI units are headed by politicians)

So the fun has begun (though the nation's future is at stake). Lets just sit back and enjoy while it lasts. But more importantly go out and vote on the electon day. (I can't because I will not be in my home constituency at the time of voting)

NASTY SEIZURE MONSTER strikes again. Poor Snickers had several seizures this morning. Mama is very worried about her. The seizures are striking closer & closer together. Since increasing her Pheno-Barbie-Doll medication, the seizures are shorter & instead of having 4 cluster seizures each time, she is only have two seizures. Not very comforting though. So in a few weeks, Mama will have to make the decision of whether to put Snickers on the additional medication - Potassium Bromide. It generally takes 3-4 months for the drug to take full effect in the body, so loading doses might be necessary at the start to get the drug into her system faster. The good news is that this drug does not affect the liver. Another good point is that the dosage of Phenobarbital could be decreased a bit. We'll keep you posted. Snickers is having a nappy right now on the big bed.

Now for the fun exciting story of the week:

WHEELY SECRET UPDATE

As many of you know, the Wheely Kids have been up to something with Dr. Snitchenstein & Dr. Craemer. Last week Snickers & I kept finding containers like this in the frigeator:

Hmmmmm, what do you think it is???

Well, 2 of our pals have guessed correctly what has been going on. Yep, Joey & Duffus Tanner thought maybe there is a clone of Lacie being grown, hehehehehe!

Little did everyone know that Lacie has been fooling them with her diah-rear stories. Seems she had been taking a bit too much of those Ex-Lax pills to try to lose weight. She has been wanting to lose weight so she can become a super terrier model. Here is some evidence of her walking down a runway:

Just look at that skinny girl! While Lacie was at the vette, she actually had some liposuction surgery done. Plus then she needed some nip & tuck surgeries. So the Wheely Kids snuck into the vette's office & stole some of the DNA from the fat, ewwwwhhhh! Then they found her skin remnants from the plastic surgery & stole that too! They wheeled it home as fast as their rusty wheels could go & brought everything to Dr. Snitchenstein.

They begged Dr. Snitchensteinto create a clone of Lacie. So she agreed. Right now CLONE LACIE is almost fully developed. Now, don't be alarmed when you see the following pictures. CLONE LACIE still doesn't have any hair on her body. It's just bare skin.

Here is Dr. Craemer with the patient. As you can see, CLONE LACIE is still on a ventilator too.

Dr. Craemer has to run the ventilator by paw. He sure is getting a workout doing this too!

CLONE LACIE's lungs are filling up nicely.

Dr. Craemer sits with her night & day.

Dr. Craemer hopes that he & Dr. Snitchenstein will win some kind of science prize.

Butchy & Snickers think they will both lose their doctor's licenses, hehehehe! Stay tuned for the next news update. Our sources have informed us about a possible powker pawty to announce the unveiling of CLONE LACIE!

As I was walking to work yesterday morning, my head full of layouts, DP's, stamps, etc., I came up with a sketch and this is the card for it. Turned out a bit different than what I envisioned in my head, but it always does, really. I find when I'm actually creating the card that this or that won't work so I have to adjust.

I had a bit of trouble colouring as I couldn't find any marker that matches exactly the shade of green that's in the designer papers, so I just hoped that what I ended up with would look okay.

I used micro glitter on Tilda's tutu. I used my Quickie Glue Stick Pen from Sakura to go over the entire tutu, dump the glitter over the area and shook off the access glitter. The glue dries clear and I used the transparent Cool Highlight micro-fine glitter, so the colour from the marker shows through. Micro glitter is great to work with, but can be a bit messy and no matter how careful you are, you find yourself walking around all day with glitter all over your clothes.

Cube steak is not a cut of meat that I care much for, however, sometimes the price is right and it ends up in my freezer. When it does I try to find something different to do with it. My very favorite thing to make is Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich off of http://thepioneerwoman.com/ . If you haven't tried this before you really should.Go to her cooking tab and then look under Cowboy Food. Yum!Yesterday, at the last minute, I pulled cube steak from the freezer and decided to make Parmesan Cube Steak, a broccoli casserole and I had run out of potatoes so I had to use a box of potatoes which were YUCK! Anyways here is the recipe for the cube steak.

Parmesan Cube Steak

This made 8 cube steaks. You can cut the measurements back if making less.

6 tbsp. flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

3 eggs

3 tbsp. water

1/2 cup cracker meal ( or crushed crackers)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tsp. dried basil

Olive Oil

8 cube steaks

2 (8oz.) cans tomato sauce

3 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

8 slices mozzarella cheese

A bit more Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In bowl, mix flour, salt & pepper. Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk eggs and water together & set aside.

In 3rd bowl, mix cracker meal, 1/2 cup Parmesan & basil.

Heat Olive oil in skillet.

Dredge cube steaks in flour mixture, dip in egg mix and then coat with the cracker meal mixture. Place in hot oil and brown on both sides.

Once browned, place in a greased baking dish in a single layer.

Bake in oven.

I baked mine for about an hour but I always cook mine longer than most people prefer so you will have to be the judge of the time.

While that is baking, mix the tomato sauce, sugar, oregano and garlic powder in a small bowl and then set aside.

After meat has cooked for the hour then I removed it from the oven and spooned the tomato sauce mix over top of each steak.

Next place a slice of mozzarella over the sauce and sprinkle with a few flakes of oregano and a bit more Parmesan.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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Attaching to each side of a focal is something I haven't tried before. I used one strand of brown wire and two strands of copper wire with a cluster of copper fire-polished beads on each side and attached them with jump rings. I really like how it turned out.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Been a while since my last post here. Well work life has become a bit more busy. Although if I really wanted to I could have still written down a few posts in the interim. And its been a longer time since I wrote about my favourite topic, Cricket. So here goes.

Our biggest festival, the General elections are here. Now, unlike other parts of the world where national elections take place on one day with the results available by the next day, ours is a spread out process. this time the elections are in 5 phases spread over a period of over a month. Nothing wrong with that, specially with the security issues and the logistics involved in conducting this mammoth exercise. But unfortunately for cricket buffs like me, the general elections coincided pretty much with the second season of the IPL. This is how the drama unfolded.

IPL announces the fixtures for the second season.

The Election Commission announce the dates for the general elections.

Sri Lankan team bus is attacked in Pakistan by terrorists injuring many players (which is one of the most disgusting things to have happened).

The Home minister P.Chidamabaram says providing security to IPL would be difficult during the elections.

Many of the state governments state thier inability to provide security.

IPL modifies schedule which is again rejected by some states

The schedule is modified again and again but always met with unwillingness from some state governments (Seemed like becoming a OR problem with each state providing their time constraints)

End result. BCCI announces that the IPL will be held outside India.

So the Indian Premier League becomes the Non Resident Indian Premeir League with South Africa & England becoming the front runners to host it. But it does seem ironical that our dometic tournament is being hosted outside India. With the current security situation following the Mumbai attacks on 26/11 and Lahore attacks on the Sri lankan team, there can be no guarantees for anybody's safety. And with the elections going on (which is much more imprtant than cricket) providing extra security would not have been possible.

But as usual we have the political gamesmanship on. Some allege that the Congress governments were the ones refusing to procide security. Others allege that Congress was trying to arm twist NCP's Sharad Pawar (who happens to be ex-BCCI president) for a better alliance deal. Then the political mud slinging has also begun. But it all has become a farce.

Now if the touranment is held in South Africa, who would the people in the stadium (assuming some go to watch) support. TV viewership in India would likely remain same. But will the matches have the seem feel as last year. After all how many people would come to pay and watch the Non Resident Indian Premier League.

I'll keep this short as I'm posting this before I have to go to work this morning.

I’ve created this card simply because I wanted to make another card using the Heart Jumper Tilda (from Magnolia). I like this image very much--haven’t gotten tired of it yet. However the card also seem to meet the requirement of the challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar, which simply asks you to use Gem's on your cards. So this card is for their Challenge 43.

Thirty years ago I met a girl in kindergarten class. That girl ended up being my best and closest friend. The one that you never let go of. The one that is always there regardless of what is going on. The one that answers the phone no matter what time it is and the one that probably knows the most about you.

Yes, we have driven each other crazy over the years but we wouldn't change a thing. Well, her birthday is today.

So, Friday I went in search of the perfect gift for her and I found it. The gift itself may not be perfect but the words upon the gift are.

And on a personal note.... we have adopted a new puppy!!!! This gorgeous little thing was abandoned together with her sister on one of our busiest highways.... my wonderful neighbours rescued them and are keeping one... my son and I are taking the other one. Meet little Houdini, she will be moving in with us in a couple of weeks!!! :-)

There are so many places these dogs could have been left at, why the people who had them chose to leave them on a busy highway is beyond my comprehension!!! I am so grateful to my neighbours for finding them and for letting us have one. I'm sure she will be a wonderful addition to our family!!!